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What is Value-Producing Labour?

The question is the following: which kind of labour "create" values? If we answer: it is productive labour "creates" value, then this answer is just a tautology. If we answer: it is labour that produces products and that is embodied in them "creates" value, then this answer is still ambiguous because you do not define what is the product. Can we say circulation workers produce "service products"? Are they labour embodied in such so-called "service products", and eventually, are their labour productive? The above answers are not satisfying, these answers still have something needed to be defined.  So we need another criterion to judge what kind of labour "create" values. For Masako Watanabe  (渡辺雅男. Sorry I just found him in Japanese Wiki, but you can translate this Japanese website page into English by Chrome), a Japanese Marxian economist, to evaluate whether the labour creates value, we need to check whether this kind of lab...
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A Marxian Response to the Problem of Value Determination in a Joint Production System

In Steedman's book "Marx after Sraffa", he proposed that in a joint production system, the labour values of commodities can be negative, which is in sharp contrast to Marxian theory of labour value. I am not meant to revisit his original argument and mathematical model here. If someone is interested in Steedman's argument, he/she can read the book "Marx after Sraffa". What I want to propose here, is a mixed version that makes me feel satisfied. This answer comes from Anwar Shaikh's "Real Competition Theory" and two Chinese modern classical economists: Feng Jinhua (冯金华) and Hou Hehong (侯和宏). Feng and Hou Let me introduce Feng and Hou's response to Steedman's critique at first. In 2011, they wrote a paper "Can Negative Surplus Value and Positive Profit Coexist?" (《负剩余价值和正利润可以同时存在吗?》), which was published in Journal of Renmin University of China (《中国人民大学学报》). In this paper, Feng and Hou point out that the labour term that appeare...

Principle of Subordination of Needs may not Necessarily Lead to the Strictly Lexicographical Order of Choices

This article is aimed to show that there may be a false within Dr. Marc Lavoie's argument about the relationship between principle of subordination of needs and strictly lexicographical order of choices. Principle of Subordination of Needs  Principle of subordination of needs is one of seven principles of consumer choices in Post-Keynesian Economics. Basically, this principle argues that each consumer has a pyramid or hierarchy of needs. We can say Maslow's  model of hierarchy of needs is a good example to express this principle. According to this principle, human's needs are hierarchical. Some needs are relatively more important than others. If consumer has some positive income, this consumer will firstly spend the income on the most important need (for example, food) in order to satisfy this most important need, and then if she still have some residual income, she will spend her residual income on the relatively less important need in order to satisfy it. Actually, this...

Welcome, everybody!

Welcome! This blog is my private blog. In this blog, Hopefully I will discuss a wide range of economic topics, including (but not only) Marxian Economics and Post-Keynesian Economics. As I'm Chinese and I'm living and studying in Liverpool, UK now. Maybe I'll also discuss something about UK or China economy. This blog is provided by platform 'Blogger'. I will write articles in English first, since this blog is designed to let me communicate with other people who are non-Chinese. However, once I am available I will translate these English articles into Chinese and publish them in my Zhihu(知乎,which means 'do you know it', a Chinese Q&A platform like Quora') private Column 'MarxianEconomics' . So my Chinese friends don't need to worry about to cannot understand my articles. Also, this blog is also designed for helping me practice my English writing ability. So if you find some errors about spelling or grammar or inappropriate word...